Education Program

Offering the chance to learn about creativity in the network society through the key concepts of “society,” “body,” and “media technology,” MeCAʼs education program is aimed at fourthgrade elementary school students and older. In addition to a special outreach workshop developed by leading Japanese media art center YCAM, students will also participate in programming and hardware hacking workshops.

Workshop 1: Eye2Eye

Sights of “sight”: The uncharted possibilities of the gaze
Operating a computer through eye movementThis workshop uses EyeWriter, an eye-gaze input technology for visualizing and sharing human eye movement. As is evident from such common expressions as “making eyes” or “the eyes are the window to the soul,” we consciously move our eyes and use the way we look at something or someone to convey what we are thinking. Moreover, many means of attracting and guiding our line of sight are concealed within everyday life. But how far can we communicate just by our eyes? And even when looking at the same thing, is it really the same for everyone? It is quite possible that we all focusing on different things. In this workshop, participants play a variety of games while visualizing what they are looking at. They share how they typically utilize their gaze or way of looking as well as what they are looking at. Through these activities, the workshop considers possibilities for sight and eye communication.http://www.ycam.jp/en/events/2017/eye2eye/

Creating dance through language
Creating new movement out of discrepancies between language and imageThis workshop uses technology developed by YCAM to discover aspects of the relationship between language (kotoba) and the body (shintai) that we are not normally conscious of in everyday life. What kind of movement do you imagine when you hear the word “elephant”? Dangling your arm and swinging it from side to side makes you think of what kind of words? In the workshop, participants move their bodies according to words and then think of words from their moving bodies. In addition, by inputting the matched physical movement and words into a computer, the workshop creates a database that can be used to combine movements and devise choreography. In this way, the workshop is an opportunity for participants to uncover examples of both differences of interpretation and things in common as well as the strange and the fun that are all emerge from linking language and physical movement.

This workshop aims to introduce to the younger generation (digital natives) the concept of
exploring and playing with technology that does not require computers, electricity, and batteries.
The workshop will guide them in producing simple science projects made from everyday
household objects, which will enable them to observe and investigate the concept of sound in its
basic form, and its associated technologies.

Glitchtape is an audio-reactive video synthesizer workshop module that is developed for musician and/or sound artist to automatically create a visual projection without the use of a computer. The synthesizer module is simply generate the three main color in LCD and/or projector responding to the fluctuate audio gain from it’s input. It was developed by Andreas Siagian for the needs on simple setup for his audio visual stage performances. Glitchtape itself is using Arduino microcontroller in its’ core for signal synchronization through VGA connector, allowing the synthesizer to be use with any consumer electronics visual displays either LCD screens or projectors that using VGA source as an input. The synthesizer allows the user to control the main Red, Green and Blue gain to generate different visual composition. Glitchtape is an extension of 8-bit Mixtape project that was initiated back in 2013 in Indonesia by Marc Dusseiller, Budi Prakosa and Andreas Siagian.